Lfl 261 
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1844 
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L E C T U R E 



DELIVERED BEFORI 




E GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



FEBRUARY 39TH AND MARCH 4TH. 1844. 



ON Tin: 



> II B J E C T OF EDUCATION. 



BY SAMUEL, K. TALMAGE, 

President of Ojletliorpe University. 



SAVANNAH: 

PKF.SS OF LOCKE AND DAVIS..... BAY STREE1\. ....^^ 



1844.. 



^33 







LECTURE 



UICLIVERED BEFOBE 



THE GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



FEBRUARY 29TH AND MARCH 4TH, 1844. 



ON THE 



SUBJECT OF EDUCATION, 



.^'' 



Jl 



BY sasiue:i< k. talmage, 

President of Oglethorpe' University. t 



SAVANNAH: 

PRESS OF LOCKE AND DAVIS.. ...BAV STREET. 




1844. 



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CORRESPONDENCE. 



SAVANNAH, MARCH 7, 1844. 
Reverend and Dear Siu:— I have been instructed by the Board of Man- 
agers and the Committee of Arrangements, to express to you tlie unanimous 
thanks of the Georgia Historical Society, for the able and interesting Lecture 
delivered before them on the evening of the 29th ult. and 4th inst., and res- 
pectfully to request of you a copy for publication. 

I am Reverend and Dear Sk, 

With great respect and esteem. 

Yours, very truly, 

I. K. TEFFT, 
Corresponding Secretary- 
Rev. S. K. Talmage, 

Pulaski House. 



PULASKI HOUSE, MARCH 7, 1844. 
Dear Sir :— Your favor of to-day is before me, conveying the kind express- 
ions of the Board of Managers and of the Committee of Arragements of the 
Georgia Historical Society. 

I comply with their request to furnish a copy of my Address for publication ; 
not however without some hesitation, as it was not prepared for the public 
eye. Being on the eve of leaving the city, my engagements prohibit aneed- 
ful review of the sheets. 

I am, Dear Sir, 

With great respect and esteem. 

Your Obedient Servant. 

SAMUEL K. TALMAGE. 
I. K. Tefft, Esq. 

Corresponding Secretary 

and Chairman Committee Arrangements. 



ADDRESS 



Gentlemen of the Historical Society, 

And Respected Audience : 

It is with pleasure that I respond to the call of the Society I now 
address, and bring to it my humble tribute, that I may testify my strong 
sense of the value of this Association, and my earnest interest in 
its welfare and progress. 

In all the annals of man, and in the history of her sister Colonies, 
perhaps no State, in looking back to her origin, has occasion, more 
than Georgia, for the exercise of an honest pride. Whilst the other 
States of this happy Union are distinguished as having their founda- 
tions laid in an ardent love of liberty and a just appreciation of the 
rights of conscience, Georgia can superadd to these motives' the 
Spirit of Heaven-descended charity. Instead of serried warriors, 
with their blood-stained banners, to lay her foundations — instead of 
the spirit of cupidity and a reckless disregard to the rights of 
humanity, which have too often marked the progress of society, her 
sons can point to the spirit of their founders with proud exultation, 
and challenge the world for a purer origin. Philanthropy suggested 
the project ; Philanthropy nerved the arm, and sustained the spirit 
that carried forward the enterprise. And we would be recreant to 
the claims which such a source imposes, did we not dwell upon it, 
and hold it up to posterity as a rich legacy of example. And where, 
more fittingly, shall such an Association convene to rehearse the 
deeds of disinterestedness and valor, than in this ancient City, where 
every spot is associated with some pleasant memorial of the past — its 
perilous enterprise, its heroic adventure, its patient endurance ; on 
this spot, where the generous heart of Oglethorpe often palpitated 
with intense anxiety, and where his brow was knit with care for the 
cherished object of his strong affection ; on this spot, where the 
pure-minded Saltzbergers planted their tents to return thanks to 
God for his guiding hand amid the wild waste of waters; here, 



where tlie conflict of the Colonial and Revolutionary struggles 
centred ; and here, too, where the Wesleys expended their pious 
efforts, and Wiiitefield breathed his soul of fire — Whitefield, the 
most gifted for popular effect of all orators, save Demosthenes and 
Chatham, that ever charmed the human ear. 

The past history of Georgia abounds, Gentlemen, with thrilling 
incidents, and especially when taken in connection with her resources 
and prospects, is abundantly worthy of being embalmed in a grateful 
remembrance. The story of her origin will yield a rich tribute to 
humanity, in the developement of the benevolence of her founder 
and his colleagues. Her resources and her climate are unsurpassed 
in any land under the broad expanse of Heaven. Her present posi- 
tion is so signally propitious, and her facilities for improvement so 
vast and multiplied, that every consideration of the past ought to be 
brought to bear upon us, to stimulate us to action. Sublimely in- 
spiring is the memory of that past — cheering the present — animating 
the future prospect — if we prove not utterly derelict to our duty and 
unworthy of the destiny to which the unerring finger of Heaven 
seems to point. 

Let those, then, who have habits and facilities for research, rescue 
from oblivion the noble sacrifices and perils incurred in founding the 
Colony — ennoble, in burning eloquence, the lofty enterprise of the 
, first Colonists — and transmit their example on the historic page to a 
grateful posterity, to inspire them with sentiments worthy of such an 
origin. Others, I respectfully submit, might, under your patronage, 
employ their powers in developing the resources for future great- 
ness, and bring their results to your shrine as a thank-offering fiDr 
the past. Some might discourse on the natural history of a State 
teeming with the most luxuriant productions, botanical and mineral ; 
some, on the geological remains which lie richly embedded along 
your coast. Whilst interspersing with, and giving variety to, the 
disclosures of the past, others might unfold the advantages of our 
commanding local position, and show how nature intended that the 
great valley of the Mississippi and the Mexican Gulf should be united 
to the Southern Atlantic through a door, which the God of nature 
has specially opened for our entrance. Others, again, like the Man- 
tuan bard to the citizens of ancient Italy, might, by the eloquence 
of their strains, teach how to fertilize those lands we have been 
murdering with cruel hand, and thus arrest that destructive spirit of 



emigration which clothes iu IVovvns one of the brightest Edens on 
earth, and which retards the spirit of improvement that woukl else 
place Georgia on an enviable elevation among States and Nations. 
And others still, might profitably investigate the peculiar diseases of 
our climate, with the remedies nature has planted hard by, to relieve 
the ills of smitten humanity. Thus the Past and the Present, com- 
mingling their streams, could be made to bear with fertilizing power 
upon the Future. The sanguine expectations of the first settlers 
of Georgia were not the wild dreams of enthusiasm — for the facili- 
ties of progress are multiplied almost beyond parallel, and we have 
only to avail ourselves of them, and a vast work is done. 

By the indulgence of those at whose call I have the honor to 
appear before you, I design to speak of the claims which the rising 
generation have upon us, that we may train them up worthily of the 
ancestors whose names they bear, and suitably to the times and the 
position they are called to occupy. 

It is one of the strong proofs of the wisdom and the far-reaching 
discernment of the early emigrants to this land, and the first actors 
in the scene, that the cause of education commanded so much of 
their attention. The foundation of the best schools of learning in 
the_States was laid during the Colonial period, and those institutions 
were all the result of private munificence. Nor was this subject 
overlooked in Georgia. Though Wiiitefield's early efforts in behalf 
of his fondly cherished Bethesda at first only contemplated, by a 
noble charity, the corporeal wants of the unfriended and the lonely 
orphan, yet his views soon expanded into a plan for endowing a 
College on the model of Princeton. He never fully carried out his 
purpose, principally because the Government at home refused to grant 
a charter on those liberal principles, in the spirit of which his endow- 
ment was raised. Still, his efforts were not entirely in vain. This 
City, and through it the State, is to this day reaping the fruits of his 
efforts, and those of his coati^utors. 

Mankind are, in the Providence of God, created and placed in a 
situation in which they must inevitably receive much from their fel- 
lows, and impart much in return. The rising generation catch their 
tone and character from their predecessors. Our race is sent into 
this world weak in body, plastic in mind and in heart, and imitative 
in spirit, that parents, teachers, guardians, rulers, may control and 
mould them. " 'Tis education forms the common mind," A nation 



8 

will rise or fall rapidly, accordingly as education advances or recedes 
Seldom, if ever, does it stand still ; elements are always at work to 
elevate or to prostrate. It is not in mental as in physical nature, 
that a fallow ground may become richer; constant culture is the 
price paid for the moral crop. 

In view of what children may be made by education and example, 
an ancient Greek philosopher says : " Let the child he vieioed with 
aioe." And indeed the rising generation should be looked upon as 
a race of giants in embryo; for it is only necessary that the adult 
educators of one generation should feel their powers and apply fully 
the means at their command, and their successors may be made 
giants, intellectually and morally. Let every child be regarded 
mentally as an infant Hercules, slumbering in his cradle — let every 
expansion be given to his growing powers, and sublime may be the 
result. There is truth in the poet's paradox : " The child is father 
of the man." 

The object of education is to make man intelligent, wise, useful, 
happy. In its enlarged and proper sense, it is to prepare him for 
action and felicity in two worlds. The intellect, the heart, and the 
body, are the subjects upon which to operate ; there is an intimate 
connection between them all ; they are mysteriously united, and 
mutually affect each other in a wonderful manner; their secret com- 
munings and reciprocal influences none can fully comprehend or 
explain. 

When the infant opens his eyes upon the creation, he is surrounded 
by a world of wonders. As the faculties of the growing child are 
expanded and his powers developed, new and strange objects meet 
his eye and invite his attention at every turn. Above, beneath, 
around, within, if he is trained to observation, all teem with impene- 
trable phenomena. If the mind be left in ignorance, and not trained 
to thought, investigation and enquiry, when the first novelty of 
external objects is worn off by familiariiy, and the glories of nature 
have become common by a superficial inspection, the mind will sink 
into a savage indifference. You may, perhaps, awaken a transient 
emotion in the mind of an untutored savage, when you introduce to 
his view some of the wonderful or sublime scenes of nature. Whilst 
he stands on the summit of some lofty mountain and gazes upon the 
wide landscape of hill and valley, and plain and forest, or as he views 
the rolling ocean, and sees its waves dashing against the shore, and 



9 

then again retiring in angry murmurs to the raging deep, there may 
arise some mysterious whisperings within him of a Divine power to 
be feared. When the earthquake causes the ground to tremble be- 
neath him, or a dark eclipse shuts out the light of day from his vision, 
and throws its mournful pall across the earth, he may feel as though 
the Great Spirit were coming down with his tokens of wrath for 
those sins which disturb his conscience. But under ordinary cir- 
cumstances he treads over the earth with the stupidity and indifference 
of the brute creation. His selfishness and his passions are all that 
stimulate him to action. He is like the blind man walking in dark- 
ness, dead to the beauties and the charms which glow around him. 

But awaken attention and thought within the youthful mind — 
lead him to the Pierian fountain and let him imbibe its delicious 
draughts — conduct him to the temple of science — allure him to 
the charmed society of the Muses — unlock the treasures of knowl- 
edge — unfold the pages of history — introduce him to the acquain- 
tance of the refined arts — let him know the properties, the relations, 
the laws, the constituent ingredients of the works of the moral, the 
intellectual and the physical world — and there is mentally a new 
creation begun. 

As the youthful votary of science advances in life, and explores 
further the fields of nature and art, he finds new worlds of wonder 
perpetually arising before him ; instead of approaching nearer the 
boundary, it seems to recede forever from him. Each successive 
advance up the hill of knowledge opens a wider and more extensive 
expanse to his view, and he finds that he can never reach the limit ; 
his eye dances with joy, his heart is thrilled with delight, from new 
discoveries ; but a shoreless, unsounded deep is still around and be- 
neath him. Sir Isaac Newton, after having " scanned the heavens 
and walked among the stars," and listened to the music of the spheres, 
still felt, in view of the unexplored worlds of discovery yet untouched, 
" like a child picking up pebbles on the shores of the ocean." 

When the scholar surveys what has been written in history and 
sung in poetry, and what remains undescribed and unsung — when 
he lifts his telescope against the heavens, or with his retort and 
crucible in hand goes forth and puts nature to the torture to reveal her 
secrets — when he sees what the pencil and chisel have done to make 
the canvass speak and the cold marble breathe, and almost to 
realize the fabled imagery of peopling mute nature with living divini- 
ties — when he dives into the ocean of mind, and finds how much of 



10 

unexplored and unsatisfactory result is left, after all the investigations 
of the metaphysician, he feels that time is too short for his work. 
And yet a vast amount can be learned, and boundless progressive 
movements are yet to be made, and there must be a beginning and 
a progress. Others have started lower and later in life than he, and 
their names are indelibly engraven on the register of learning, and 
their works destined to live, the rich and common inheritance of all 
coming ages. 

In childhood, the first object is, to exercise the senses and learn 
the qualities of those things on which life, and health, and freedom 
from pain depend. In early youth, a knowledge of letters and the 
simplest rudiments of science is all that can be infused into the mind. 
It is true, there are important moral lessons to be learned at this 
period. The child should be taught to exercise restraint of passions 
and prompt obedience to authority. It is vain to object to forestalling 
the mind with religious sentiments at that age, before the judgment 
has taken her seat on the throne, and before an intelligent choice can 
be made, lest prejudice may sway the mind and give an unjust bias, 
to the disadvantage of future correct decision. It would be well to 
consider that passion, and prejudice and error will have anticipated 
the earliest moral instruction ; they are in the field beforehand, and 
habit is forming and will be soon found forging and riveting its 
chains ; and the lessons taught at that age are written in letters of 
adamant. First impressions areoften indelible — they prove last im- 
pressions. So that, if we wait for the expanding powers, there is a 
counteracting evil influence in advance of us. There is no estima- 
ting the dependance of after life and of eternity itself, on the bias, 
given to the heart and the mind at this early period. " Train up a 
child in the way he should go," is Heaven's unerring direction, 
" and when he is old he will not depart from it.'' 

In fostering affection and waking up a spirit of enquiry, the foun- 
dation is laid for the social habits and intellectual progress of all 
future time. 

A great and good man has recorded in his memoirs the painful fact 
that, from being excluded from the family circle for five years of his 
early youth, without a moment's interval, in pursuit of his education, 
he never could recover that filial and fraternal affection to his relatives, 
which conscience and judgment demanded of him. That pure foun- 
tain which spontaneously gushes up in the bosom of the family was 
stopped, and he could never renew the current. A distinguished 



11 

and successful votary of science bears testimony that, for his iusa- 
tiable thirst for knowledge, and any degree of success to which he 
attained in its cultivation, he was indebted to the promptings of a 
sedulous mother, whose uniform answer to his enquiries was " Read 
my son, and you will know." Whilst the illustrious and unfortunate 
Byron, in his description of one of his heroes, has revealed the 
secret of the waywardness of his own life, when he exclaims : 

" And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame, 
My springs of life were poisoned." 

And here comes in the nameless power of woman over our mental 
and moral destiny. She stands at the head of the fountain of life 
and directs its flowings to gladden and to fertilize, or to wither and 
to curse. 

It has been a matter of dispute at what age the intellectual educa- 
tion should commence. To this enquiry, I would unhesitatingly 
answer, though in the face of high authority, that the mind should 
be drawn to study at the earliest point and to the greatest extent that 
can be employed, without weariness or disgust to the child. A love 
of learning can be infused at a very early period, and all that is then 
gained is clear gain, and brings its tribute of compound interest in 
after life. 

The comparative advantages of a public and a private education, 
was formerly a much agitated question. There are some strong 
reasons alleged in favor of a private education, but it appears to 
me that those in favor of a public course greatly preponderate. 
The means and facilities of instruction will, of course, in a properly 
organized public institution, be more largely concentrated. The 
advantage of a wholesome emulation, (for the mind acts more power- 
fully under excitement and impulse,) the friendships formed by early 
association, and the experience and knowledge of mankind acquired 
even at that age, preparing for future life, must not be overlooked. 
It is true, there is no small hazard to be incurred to the morals and 
the sentiments, as many institutions are unfortunately now organised. 
And where a large collection of young men are congregated, during 
an age peculiarly exposed to temptation, the most critical and peril- 
ous period of human existence — when the passions are strong and 
the inexperience entire — and when the youth is excluded from all 
the wholesome restraints of the domestic roof; vicious example some- 
times makes fearful havoc among the thoughtless and unstable. 
There are perils to be encountered (it nmsl not be disguised) which 



12 

many a wreck of ruined youth has mournfully confirmed, as it floated 
by, mocking a father's hopes, blasting a mother's fondest anticipa- 
tions, and withering her heart Still it is believed that, with a rigid, 
vigilant and paternal care and supervision, backed by the constant 
appliance of moral and religious truth, the College may be made the 
abode of purity and refinement, and the costly sacrifice of hecatombs 
of victims may be saved, whilst the great benefits of public educa- 
tion are enjoyed. 

The safest and best mode of College organization to promote to 
the fullest extent all the objects of a thorough and proper educa- 
tion, is a subject of enquiry worthy of the thoughtful consideration 
of the philanthropist. There is much wild and visionary speculation 
afloat in our land, even among able men, as to having a few great 
institutions of learning; the practical error of which arises from want 
of accurate observation of the facts and circumstances of the case. 
If we were driven to the alternative of choosing between having the 
many well educated, or a few profoundly instructed at the expense 
of leaving the multitude in comparative ignorance, the necessities 
of our republican institutions would seem to demand the former as the 
least evil. The age at which our youth are found at public institu- 
tions, and the demands of our republican forms of government, call 
for the extensive diflTusion of a liberal education that does not require 
a long series of years of study. We need facilities for liberal 
instruction spread within local distances easily accessible, and 
demanding but moderate expenses to complete the course, only guard- 
ino- acrainst such a multiplication as will distract and divide patronage 
beyond the means of collecting adequate libraries, apparatus, mu- 
seums, and competent boards of instruction. 

A late experiment has been made in a sister State, in advance of 
the condition of learning in our infant nation, of a large Central 
College. The patronage of the Legislature was lavished upon the 
project, and the sanction of great names invoked to its aid. A corps 
of learned professors was imported from abroad, unacquainted with 
the genius of our people, to deliver their profound lectures to an 
audience of youth not qualified to appreciate or understand their 
refined and labored speculations, for want of more thorough research. 
The movement was a total failure, the plan was entirely changed. 

To this day, Eton College and Harrow of England, I will venture 
to say, are far more efficient sources of discipline and enlightenment 
than Oxford and Cambridge, so far as the undergraduate is concerned. 



13 

In the latter places, much that is valuable in mental discipline is 
unlearned, whilst extravagance, dissipation and indolence are the 
prominent accomplishnents gained. There can be no substantial 
superstructure without a broad and solid foundation, and it is to this 
that the practical man will look in all projects relating to the great 
cause of education. Let our institutions advance with the progress 
of the nation, without attempting to press forward a hot bed growth. 
Supply and demand should go together. I would not be understood, 
far from it, as an advocate for lowering the standard of education ; 
but on the contrary, for elevating it as fast as it can practically be 
done. But a large shadow is less desirable that a substa.atial, valuable 
reality, of half its dimensions. 

That the State is bound for her own interest, as well as for that 
of the citizen individually, to patronise and promote the cause of 
liberal education, admits not of a question. That she must sustain 
institutions of her own, or that many will remain uneducated, is 
equally clear. But the practical question is, after all, embarrassed 
with difficulties ; legislative control is a very uncertain patron of 
letters; p'arty spirit is often very unclassical in its tastes; sectarian 
bigotry often interferes with the best interests of public education ; 
State institutions belonging equally to all parties, political and reli- 
gious — all feel fully authorized to interfere, and in the strife, every 
thing that is sound and solid suifers. What is the prospect, think 
you, for literary appropriations in a Legislature, where an honorable 
Senator is able to correspond with his absent family only by the aid 
of an amanuensis, and where that family must needs call in a neigh- 
bor to read the letter for them ; and where an honorable member of 
the other House is heard to say, " When he was a child, one man 
was enough to teach a school, but now the times are so altered, they 
must set up half a dozen lazy fellows to teach the boys." But the 
serious obstacle is, the difficulty of the introduction of any definite, 
distinctive religious instruction. Where all are to be suited, none 
can be suited^ and the pious parent must consent to leave the heart 
of his beloved child uninstructed. Lord Brougham, after his splendid 
failure to advance education, has conceded, in his letter to the Bishop 
of London, that the Clergy must undertake the work. The Chris- 
tian Church then must do far more, directly in the work of education ; 
a work in which she has hitherto been criminally deficient. And 
the protection against a miserable spirit of proschjtism must be found 
in a friendly rivalry, as to the patronage of letters, where those who 



14 

are the most liberal will find the largest support. Religion, niingluig 
its restraints with enlightened mental instruction, is the safest dis- 
ciplinarian. Inexperienced, enthusiastic, impassioned, thoughtless 
youth, exiled from the benign influence of the domestic circle in 
pursuit of education, from the sleepless vigilance of maternal affec- 
tion, and from the wholesome restraints of the father's eye, requires 
the hallowed influences of religion to prevent the blessings of culti- 
vated intellect from being purchased at the too dear sacrifice of 
prostrated morals and corrupted sentiments. Education, unaided 
by moral influences, is but the beautiful flower of a poisonous plant, 
more destructive as it is more attractive, spreading contagion all 
around, and filling the atmosphere with the principles of death. 

Within a few years past, much has been said in favor of a system 
of manual labor in connection with mental instruction. The theory 
is a beautiful one; " Mens sana in sano corpore," is a good maxim. 
The idea of promoting health of body, together with practical in- 
dustry and economy during a course of education, is pleasant to 
contemplate, and I am not surprised that this plan has found nume- 
rous advocates. But it is not every theory, however beailtiful, that 
will endure the touch stone of experiment; experience is the test of 
truth. Out of a large number of institutions founded on this prin- 
ciple, in various parts of the country, some of them under circum- 
stances highly favorable, not one, I believe I may say, has succeeded 
to the expectations of the projectors. The bodily system, that must 
be housed and relaxed a considerable portion of the day for study, 
cannot endure those alternations of heat and cold and storm, that 
must be encountered in any systematic plan of manual labor. The 
student requires some hours of relaxation from a regular routine of 
exercises, incompatible with the complicated and impracticable 
plan of combining regular study with labor. The occupations con- 
flict too much with each other, to promote them both successfully. 

The visionary theory must be abandoned, except as a charity for 
poor youth, who must forego the blessings of education, or labor to 
find means for a limited course. As a charitable institution, it 
deserves the consideration of benevolent men, who might in this way 
rescue many a poor and promising youth from ignorance. Here 
genius might be nursed, and raised from its lowly obscurity and 
made a blessing to the country — for true genius is a vigorous shoot, 
that needs only to catch a ray of light to enable it to burst its cere- 
ments, and push its way to an enviable superiority over more favored 



plants; and in a State where we have thirl ij thousand adults, who 
cannot read, witli so little to hope irom legislation on the subject, it 
might be well for the friends of education in this way to advance the 
public weal. It might not be amiss, also, to restrict the sacred 
privilege of the elective franchise to those who can at least read their 
votes — for to make the vote of an entirely unlettered man equal to 
that of a Washington or a Franklin, sometimes potent to turn the 
scale and to decide the destiny of a people, is to hazard all to igno- 
rant tools of designing politicians, and to the weak and willing 
instruments of contemptible demagogues. 

Allow me to invite your attention to the appropriate studies of a 
College course. Perhaps our Colleges and Universities have adopted 
in the main the most judicious selection of subjects, to occupy the 
youthful mind in its training, to discipline the faculties, and lay the 
foundation for future practical life. 

In looking over the course of study in various liberal institutions, 
but little difference is to be found, except in the order in which 
studies are pursued. The defect of some consists in taxing the 
mind prematurely, before its powers are sufficiently developed, and 
in postponing certain departments that might be called into practical 
use before the leaving the College walls. Using terms in their most 
general sense, the departments of knowledge may be comprehended 
under three great divisions, viz : Physical Science, Mental and Moral 
Science, and Philological Science. Under the first, Physical 
Science, I would embrace Mathematics, Astronomy, Natural Philo- 
sophy, Natural History and Chemistry. The second explains itself. 
The third. Philological Science, includes the study of Languages and 
Belles-lettres. The value of mathematical studies for mental dis- 
cipline, I believe, none deny ; they tax the mind to close thought, 
severe application, and vigorous exercise of the judgment and the 
reasoning powers. This is eminently the case with the pure mathe- 
matics. As to the application of mixed mathematics to natural 
philosophy, it is indispensable to any tolerable knowledge of its 
principles; it is the only ladder by which we can climb up to the 
stars, or descend into the deep mysteries of the natural sciences ; it 
is the language by which these sciences reveal their arcana to man. 
The value of mental and moral philosophy is equally admitted ; it 
reveals to man the knowledge of the powers and faculties of his 
mind, and in its ethical rules, his duties as a social being and a moral 
agent. The claims of what I have denominated philological science, 



16 

are more controverted in this age of ultra utilitarianism, when money 
seems to be the great object of pursuit, and when Mammon seems 
to have set up his idol in almost every family — his altar in almost 
every heart. 

In some old and respectable institutions of our country, the question 
has been gravely started, whether the studies of Latin and Greek ought 
not to be abandoned, or at least confined within a far more limited 
space. Against this opinion, I seriously protest, and boldly pronounce 
it one of the most alarming literary heresies of the age. Allow me 
to dwell for a moment on this subject. As a means of discipline for 
the mind, I am firmly persuaded that the study of languages, and 
especially of the ancient languages, calls into wholesome and har- 
monious exercise more of the intellectual powers than any other 
department of study ; it exercises simultaneously the memory, the 
taste, the fancy, the judgment, and the powers of discrimination. 
The Greek and Latin are, in their structure, the most perfect lan- 
guages in existence, and their writers have attained to the purest 
and most finished standards of uninspired composition. It is almost 
impossible to master the anomalous structure of modern languages, 
without that acquaintance with the principles of government that is 
to be gained alone from the ancient. To them we must resort for a 
proper and clear idea of the power and dependance of words. The 
ancient languages are the roots of the modern — the key to unlock 
the treasures of all the refined languages of this age. The nomen- 
clature of the natural sciences, and the technical languages of the 
arts and learned professions, are borrowed from these sources. The 
inlets to the fountain of all historical information is found through 
the ancient languages. Without a knowledge of these, we must 
take our information on trust, and the authority of others. True, 
we have translations of many of their best works — but a good writer 
always suffers from translation. There is a power in language and 
style which discriminates the peculiar qualities of the mind, and 
which genius claims as its own. You may peruse the translation of 
an author, but it will be like culling a flower that has been dried on 
the stalk — the fragrance and the beautiful tints are gone — the una- 
dorned substance alone remains. 

I repeat it, the most finished of uninspired productions on earth are 
those of the Greeks and Latins ; they have gone to^the ultima Thule 
of refinement, the perfection of style. The works of literature and 
art of the Grecians and Romans challenge our admiration ; they 



17 

ever have been, and probably ever will remain, the standards and 
models of perfection. The overweening arrogance of many super- 
ficial moderns, in talking of the improvements and advancement of 
the modern world, of its inventions, and discoveries, and progress in 
literature, compared with all former times, would be rebuked and 
humbled by a fair examination. 

In the Arts — the ancient cement, the Tyrian die, their mode of 
embalming, their mechanical skill in elevating solid bodies of incre- 
dible weight, cannot now be equalled. An original portrait of Sappho 
was in existence in the time of the Emperor Trajan, seven hundred 
years after it was painted. Where is the artist now that can give 
such perpetuity to a painting? A few scores of years, and modern 
works are found stowed away in the attic with the worn out 
lumber. 

I confess myself utterly at a loss to account for the profoundness 
and brilliancy of learning and of art in ancient Athens. The human 
mind must have been cast in a finer mould, and then all its powers 
kept on a stretch to have attained to their unapproachable superiority. 
Or they would seem to have been like a race of demigods, scorn- 
ing the ordinary beaten track, and soaring into higher regions and 
on swifter pinions. It might have been partly owing to their games, 
exciting enthusiasm and a thirst for fame — partly to their climate 
and scenery, " their consecrated groves, their haunted streams, their 
flowery plains, their azure mountains," — partly to the genius of the 
people, and their indomitable pains and study. But whatever be the 
cause, the fact is clear. To find the golden mines of literature, we 
must always repair to Greece and Rome, and especially to the former ,• 
for prostrate Athens, by the enchantment of her literature, conquered 
her haughty Roman conquerors, and gave laws to their minds — a 
noble triumph of letters over brute force. It was like the moral 
charms of woman, imparting strength to her weakness, subduing at 
her feet the superior physical power, and taming the rugged ferocity 
of the proud lords of creation. How ardently they labored, we may 
learn by reading the profound criticisms of their five great Belles- 
lettres writers — Aristotle, Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
LoNGiNus, and Quintilian. 

Would you have an instance of the extent and the results of the 

labors of the ancients? A stranger in visiting ancient Athens, might 

have had his attention drawn to a group of thoughtless children, 

amusing themselves in the street ; his special notice is attracted to 

3 



18 

one youth more unpromising than the rest — a lisping, stammering, 
short-breathed boy — in every motion hideously, almost spasmodically 
contracting his muscles, and with a constitutional infirmity amounting 
almost to deformity. The stranger departs, with sympathy for the 
poor youth, who, if he lives, will afford sport and ridicule to his 
neighbors, and never be heard of, or remembered, but as a lusus 
natures. At an interval of thirty years, that stranger revisits Athens. 
The city is all in tumult ; the anxious, agitated crowd are assembled, 
hanging spell-bound upon the lips of the Grecian Orator, as he scathes 
by the lightnings, and stupifies by the thunders of his eloquence, the 
partisans of Philip. That speaker, whose spirit-moving strains and 
whose soul of fire kindles every heart into a consuming flame, is the 
same, ignoble youth who was never to have been heard of without 
pity, but whose name is now, in the ends of the earth, familiar as 
a household word — incorporated into every language as a synonyms 
for eloquence, and whose fame is engraven in letters of adamant on 
the register of immortality. 

How shall we account for this mental phenomenon 1 The problem 
is solved in the language of the classic poet : "Improbus labor omnia 
vincit'^ — or by the higher authority of Heaven's inspired record: 
" Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before kings; 
he shall not stand before mean men." 

In Poetry — to pass by Homer and Hesiod — where else can you 
find the deep breathing pathos of Sappho, the graceful ease of 
Anacreon, the burning sublimity of Pindar, the gentle sweetness 
of Theocritus, the glowing fervour of iEscHYLUs, the impassion- 
ed grandeur of Sophocles and Euripides, the melting tenderness 
of Menander, of whom one beautifully says : " The lyre he touched, 
was formed of the strings of the human heart?" To these questions I 
unhesitatingly reply, that beyond the limits of the Sacred Scriptures, 
you will nowhere find these qualities, in all the annals of uninspired 
literature. 

In Philosophy — visit in imagination ancient Athens, go to the 
Academy of Plato, and then to the Lyceum of Aristotle, and then 
to the Portico of Zeno, and then wander along the banks of the 
Ilyssus, and see those groves crowded with philosophers and their 
thousands of disciples, and listen to their sage precepts. Who 
would not labor to acquire an intimate knowledge of that refined 
language, which was the medium of communication and the vehicle 
of thought to these giant minds. It is not surprising that Cato 



19 

should have been converted from his hostility to every thing Greek, 
and have applied himself, in his old age, to the study of a language 
so rich in lessons of wisdom and virtue. 

In the Fine Arts — in sculpture, the inimitable Phidias has left 
all modern artists at an unapproachable distance behind ; he breathed 
his very soul into the inanimate material. With a mind heaving 
with deep emotion, and big with lofty conceptions, and thoughts all on 
fire, he seized the chisel, and, as if by the touch of a magician's 
wand, the cold marble became instinct with impassioned life, and 
glowed with inspiration. The Elgin monuments in England con- 
tain specimens of the skill of Phidias that cannot be equalled. 
Michael Angelo, the wonder of the fifteenth century, and the glory 
of Italy, of modern artists, has approached nearest to Phidias, but 
though intoxicated to madness with the love of his enchanting art, 
his productions are unnatural in the comparison. 

In Architecture — the stately Doric, the chaste Ionic, the luxuriant 
and gorgeous Corinthian orders of Greece, are now the admiration 
of the world, and will doubtless ever stand confessed the model and 
perfection of the art. 

In Painting — the productions of Zeuxis and Apelles, judging 
from the accounts of their intoxicating and more than oratorical 
influence on the crowds they drew around them, must have been 
finished specimens of absolute perfection. The Helen of the for- 
mer was the wonder of the age. To finish the picture, Zeuxis pro- 
cured six of the most beautiful maidens from Crotona to sit for the 
face, from a combination of whose beauties he sought to embody 
ideal perfection. One of them, from diffidence, was unwilling to 
unveil her face before him. When the multitude crowded around to 
gaze upon the picture, and the enthusiastic shouts of admiration 
rent the air, the painter himself was the only dissatisfied spectator; 
his exclamation was, " Oh, for the blush of the sixth maiden!" Such 
was his exquisite sense of the ludicrous, that he fell a victim to the 
power of his own pencil ; he died in a convulsion of laughter at the 
sight of the picture of a grotesque old woman he had painted. You 
are all familiar with the incident of the painted grapes of Apelles. 
When the birds alighted on the picture to peck the fruit, the painter 
was mortified that the boy bearing the basket of fruit was not striking 
enough to frighten the birds away. He exposed his pictures to the 
public, and invited general criticism, that all their faults might be 
corrected. An humble cobbler ventured to criticise a foot, which the 



20 

painter altered at his suggestion; when the meciianic, by this piece 
of deference, was emboldened to make other criticisms, the painter 
gave a reply which is said to be the origin of the Latin proverb : 
"iVe sutor ultra crepidatn." 

I have adverted to these improvements in the arts of the ancients 
to shew that, if we are to repair to them at this day as models in the 
fine arts, we should exhibit no less deference to their language and 
sti/le, in which they labored with equal industry and success, and 
which are far more important subjects for attention. Indeed, it 
admits of a serious question, whether without a constant familiarity 
with these unchanging standards, any modern language would not 
rapidly decline into provincialisms, vulgarisms and barbarisms. Few 
men in modern days have been found to excel as eloquent writers or 
speakers who have not been classical scholars. Shakspeare, Burns, 
Franklin, and Patrick Henry have been adduced as examples to 
show what men could accomplish without a knowledge of ancient 
languages ; but they are only exceptions, to make the very b^st of 
the objection. As to Shakspeare, it would appear that he had some 
knowledge of Greek, as he exhibits a familiarity with portions of 
Grecian literature, that seem never to have been translated in his 
day ; and the superiority of the others might, and doubtless would 
have been much greater, had they been aided by classical learning. 

The value of classical literature is greatly enhanced, from the 
consideration that we must repair to Greece and Rome, as to the 
fountains and depositories of a vast proportion of the knowledge we 
gain of ancient history. In searching for the annals of history, and 
the sources of knowledge on this subject, we are met by the pain- 
ful fact, that many of the most interesting productions have been 
obliterated by the waste of time. Indeed, as all early written docu- 
ments could be preserved only in the fugitive form of manuscript, it 
Is wonderful that so much has escaped the casualties that were en- 
countered, and has been transmitted to so late an age. Fire, and 
sword, and superstition, and the devastating hand of ages, and the 
icrnorance of men, have made fearful inroads and ravages upon the 
productions of mind ; they have obliterated much, and given us only a 
glimpse of more, just serving to awaken a curiosity which can never 
be fully satisfied. Like the leaves of the Sybil, their value is the 
more enhanced, in porportion as their number is diminished. 

The investigation of the history of early manuscripts is full of pain- 
ful interest. The writings of Aristotle were found with the grand- 



21 

son of one of liis disciples, and purchased by a Roman, and deposited 
in a mutilated form in a Roman library, in the best days of tlie Re- 
public. They came well nigh being finally lost amidst the lumber 
of manuscripts in a later day in modern Italy, and were only acci- 
dentally saved and brought to light. The whole of the writings of 
LivY, and also those of Varro, appear to have been in existence in 
the days of Petrarch, and were seen by him. Now, after ransack- 
ing the whole world, only thirty-five of the one hundred and forty 
books of LiVY^are to be found ; and as to Varro — the " walking 
library," and contemporary of Cicero — who wrote five hundred 
volumes and seven hundred lives of distinguished Romans, and from 
whom Pliny borrowed largely in the compilation of his profound 
Natural History — scarcely a fragment of Varro is now to be found. 
Cicero — the orator, statesman, philosopher, and scholar — probably 
the most accomplished man upon whom the sun ever shone, gained 
his wonderful stores of knowledge by devoting his days and nights to 
Varro's admirable library of manuscripts gathered from Greece. 

Some of the early historians, whose writings would have poured 
a flood of light on the dark annals of antiquity, have entirely disap- 
peared, except so far as a few fragments have been incorporated into 
the works of others. Sanchoniatiio, the Phoenician, who wrote a 
history of his country, is lost — a work of which. Porphyry gives us 
just enough to enable us to realize the loss the vvorld has sustained. 
Manetho, the Egyptian, is not to be found, and the light which is 
lost to the world by the disappearance of his history of Egypt, 
is poorly compensated by what Josephus and Eusebius have gleaned 
from his pages. Berosus, the Babylonian, and great historian of 
Chaldea, is represented to the world only by a few meagre fragments, 
which Josephus has rescued from his works. The mysterious splen- 
dors of the Hetrusci, a wonderful people of ancient Italy, the remains 
of whose refinement are now to be found only in some English 
Cabinets and the Museum of the Vatican, and whose curious relics 
amaze the antiquarian, must now remain forever a wonder to the 
world. The stately monuments of Egyptian Thebes, with her hun- 
dred gates — that classic land "where Moses meditated, and Plato 
wandered, and Euclid composed his elements" — must ever remain a 
sealed book; her monumental ruins lie scattered upon the earth like 
a prostrate forest, and the voice of her unexplored and inexplicable 
antiquities rolls solemnly over us like thunder tones, demonstrating 
the impotence of man to rescue his works from oblivion and ruin. 



22 

For the most authentic records of antiquity, next to the Sacred 
Scriptures, we are mainly indebted to Herodotus, Thucydides, 
Xenophon, and Plutarch. Herodotus, after travelling to an in- 
credible extent, and the most laborious and pains-taking research, 
wrote the history of the Lydians, lonians, Lycians, Egyptians, Per- 
sians, Greeks and Macedonians. " His style is gay and splendid, free 
and flowing;" his accuracy and fidelity are not questioned, and the 
correctness of his geographical delineations is receiving constant 
confirmation from modern discoveries. Thucydides is the great 
historian of the Peloponnesian war, and carries back his history to the 
close of that of Herodotus. " He is grave, intelligent, judicious and 
exact;" his energy and brevity sometimes render his style harsh and 
obscure. He was stimulated to an ambition for historical fame, and 
excited even to weeping, when a youth of fifteen, by hearing Hero- 
dotus recite his histories to enraptured crowds at the Olympic 
games. Of Plutarch, that prince of biographers, who throws an 
immense flood of light on contemporaneous history, a profound critic 
and classical scholar has said, if every work of ancient profane his- 
tory was doomed to destruction but one, and he had his choice of 
selection, that one should be Plutarch's Lives. Of Xenophon, I 
need not speak, whose smooth and mellifluous periods have made 
him every where a favorite author. 

The other historians, who treat of these early times, are Diogenes, 
Laertius, Orosius, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Cornelius Nepos, 
and Justin. 

The ancient historic Muse called to the aid of the Roman Empire 
a splendid galaxy of talent, learning and research, to portray her 
glories and to transmit her fame to posterity. The principal early 
historians to whom the moderns are indebted for their data on the 
subject of Rome, are (besides some of those already mentioned,) 
DioNYSius of Halicarnassus,PoLYBius, Sallust,C^sar, Suetonius, 
Tacitus, and Dion Cassius. To complete very nearly the list of 
ancient historians of any repute, I have only to add the names of 
Appian, Q,uintus Curtius, and Velleius Paterculus. 

It is fortunate for history, that whilst a large proportion of every one 
of the most distinguished of these authors is lost, a sufficient portion 
of each one is retained to cover almost every point of Roman his- 
tory, and to illustrate it to a considerable degree of satisfaction. 

DiONYSius, in the age of Augustus, spent twenty-four years in 
Rome, searching all the Greek and Latin authors to prepare a history 



23 

of Rome, which appeared in twenty-four books, called Roman An- 
tiquities, only eleven of which are extant containing the history of 
the Kings. Diodorus Siculus, of the same age, spent thirty years 
in compiling a historical Library — fifteen of the forty books of which 
are all that are now to be found. Polybius wrote a general history 
in forty books, five of which remain, besides a meagre epitome of 
the rest, compiled in the tenth century. He was carried a hostage to 
Rome, and being detained there for seventeen years, had a fine oppor- 
tunity to lay in those wonderful stores of knowledge which are so 
remarkable in what remains of his writings. Livy is supposed to 
have copied and incorporated into his Latin History whole books 
verbatim from the original Greek of Polybius — and it is not to his 
credit that, after his plagiarisms, he simply speaks of the author as 
" haudquaquam auctor speimendus." Brutus, the murderer of 
CiESAR, is said often to have retired from the field of battle to his 
tent, to be absorbed in the pages of Polybius describing his an- 
cestors. Still, LiVY is a beautiful writer, abounding in elegant 
narrative and useful reflections. Polybius and Tacitus, are perhaps 
the most remarkable of ancient historians for profoundness and inti- 
mate knowledge of human nature. The last of the ancient histo- 
rians, and the most elegant in style of his age, was Dion Cassius, who 
died A. D. 230; he spent ten years in collecting materials, and twelve 
years in preparing his eighty books, twenty only of which remain in 
a mutilated form, besides a meagre epitome compiled by Xiphilus 
during the dark ages. 

It was from the ancients that mediaeval Italy, with her poets, histo- 
rians, painters and scholars, borrowed her literature — Italy! that 
bright land which caught the expiring rays of science, and reflected 
them over Europe, lighting up a flood of glory when darkness had 
long brooded over the face of the deep. 

Such is a glance at the treasures of Greece and Rome. Their 
works embody ages of thought and research, conveyed in the most 
perfect dialects ever spoken, and clothed in a style of elegance and 
beauty that human pen has never equalled. If parents had only a 
more correct conception of these ancient store-houses of wisdom, 
and these treasuries of mental discipline, more seldom would the 
message be conveyed to teachers : " I want my son to be made a 
mathematician, chemist, natural philosopher ; but as to the useless 
lumber of Greek and Latin, I care not to have his time wasted upon 
it." 



24 

i had wished, on this occasion, to advert to some other topics', 
but the time already occupied admonishes me to close. I will only 
add that there is an alarming process of corruption going on in this 
country, in the adulteration of the English language, which demands 
a serious note of warning and rebuke. The innovations upon our 
mother-tongue are sucli, that if not speedily arrested, we shall soon 
require a glossary to enable us to appreciate the eloquent strains, 
drawn from the well of English undefiled, in which Milton and 
Shakspeare, and Dryden and Pope, have sung, and Addison and 
Macauley, have so beautifully discoursed. At the hazard of the 
charge of rashness from certain quarters, I will venture to say that 
Noah Webster, in canonizing hundreds of provincialisms and 
barbarisms, by inserting them in his American Dictionary, has 
committed an outrage on the Saxon tongue — and the most alarm- 
ing feature of the case is, that distinguished patrons of letters in the 
Northern Colleges have lent the sanction of their names to his 
unauthorized production. If it is not beneath the dignity of the 
occasion to specify a few of the strange words that are beginning to 
straggle and obtrude their unlawful forms, even into judicial decisions 
and grave senatorial debates, I would say, that the barbarous words, 
letigthy for lengthened, jeopardize for jeopard, talented for almost 
any thing, illy, as an adverb, for i\\, progress, as a verb, for advance, 
&/C., should be scouted from the circles of the refined. I trust a bar- 
rier will be raised, in the South at least, against these lawless corrup- 
tions, and that, by the common consent of our scholars, these and 
similar unauthorized and unwarrantable terms will never be permitted 
to cross Mason and Dixon's Line, to poison and corrupt our mother 
tongue. 

But I must close, and in doing so, I owe an apology to this So- 
ciety for whatever of inappropriateness this address contains, as there 
is no other general association of liberal and enlightened men in 
the State, to whose protection to commend these important topics. 
May the Historical Society long live and flourish, to enlighten the 
sons of Georgia as to the past, and to reflect the hallowed light of 
that past on their future pathway to the fame and renown which the 
great and generous Oglethorpe so fondly anticipated for the Colony. 
May it prove, under a benignant Providence, a pillar of cloud in the 
day of prosperity to shade and to guide — a pillar of fire in the night 
season of depression and gloom, to illuminate and cheer. 



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